


The Lion's Roar

by ValueTurtle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValueTurtle/pseuds/ValueTurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa doesn’t quite hate Casterly Rock when she first arrives, but it’s close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lion's Roar

Sansa doesn’t quite hate Casterly Rock when she first arrives, but it’s close.

It’s so  _different_  from Winterfell, with its hulking keep hunched over the cliffs and the sounds of seabirds and crashing waves. There’s no clean scent, snow and pine, just salt spray that stings her nose and falls on her lips so she can even taste it. When she looks over at her husband, sitting on his horse, Sansa can see how anxious he is, how desperate he is for her to like his home; it’s endearing in a way she never thought possible, so she smiles – and it hurts that she can force a smile more naturally than having one form of its own accord – and mouths compliments even she can half believe. Tyrion relaxes slightly, his hands unclench where they hold the reins, and he leads the party into the keep.

She shudders as she passes through the Lion’s Mouth. If she still held her stories close to her breast she might think there was something awfully symbolic about the action, about being consumed by the Lannisters’ sigil. She pushes that thought aside and ducks her head, though the sharp, jagged teeth are several feet above her.

In the next few days Casterly Rock is a hive of activity, bustling with servants roused from their extended holiday. Tyrion tells her, eyes pinned to the scroll in his hands, to go explore the castle, to learn her way around and discover the secrets his ancestors left behind. Sansa is uncomfortable with such loose instructions – she’s not Arya, she likes having boundaries and structure she can work within – but she’ll not be respected as the Lady of Casterly Rock until she can get from her chambers to the library without asking for directions. Her husband gives her a map, a ring of keys and a kiss on the cheek – briefly, gently, as if any sudden movement would make her bolt – and she is left to herself.

Such freedom is heady, even in a place she barely likes. The only eyes watching her are curious ones from maids and cupbearers, guards whose loyalty she has – not spies from court. No one dares comment on her travels, or bars her access to rooms. Sometimes, when Tyrion asks her where she goes, she lies; “The sept, my lord”, she says, though she’s marked the route to the cellars on her map. Sansa suspects she does it just because she can - because it’s harmless, and, if her secret is unravelled, will only cause a confused frown to appear on her husband’s face.  _I am only a little lion, child, and I vow, I shall not savage you._

One day she explores an empty wing of Casterly Rock, the one that is used only when a King arrives with all his retinue; no other time is so much space required. The rooms are choked with dust, musty, their windows sealed shut tightly against the wind and rain. Sansa doesn’t imagine them as full, picturing the people who would sleep in the beds and eat at the tables: it’s too romantic to create memories of the place, too much like her girlish fantasies, so she refrains.

The first time she thaws it’s when she finds a rooftop garden. There are other gardens, even a godswood, but this one is hidden behind the main tower. Sansa can only access it by wandering through a hallway, going out on to a balcony, then climbing a ladder. It’s worth the effort, though, to walk on the once neatly combed paths, amongst the wildly overgrown herbs. The sunlight is golden, warm, reflecting off pale yellow stones, and the air is heavy with the scent of lavender, sage – even jasmine, which is terribly exotic. She feels transported far away from the cruel cliffs of Casterly Rock, perhaps back to the glasshouses in Winterfell. Sansa threads small flower buds in her hair and breathes deeply for the first time in months.

The second time she thaws she is in the company of her husband. He finds himself free of papers and reports and asks her to join him as he visits the Golden Gallery. She has yet to see it, and somehow in her mind she creates an absurd picture of what it must be – some corridor with cases full of lumps of gold, perhaps? It is, instead, a room to display portraits of Lannisters past and passed. The gallery is steeped in wonderful, golden light, courtesy of a whole wall of coloured glass windows; Sansa can not even begin to consider the cost involved. The beauty of the chamber is enough to make her melt a bit, but it is Tyrion’s somber, respectful demeanour that is most striking. He only has eyes for the largest of the paintings, a portrait of a young woman, lovely, and rendered so life-like she could almost breathe before Sansa’s eyes.

‘My lady mother,’ he says, and she is surprised at the thickness in his voice, the heaviness where usually there is only irreverent lightness.

In King’s Landing and the Eyrie Sansa heard the stories of her husband’s birth - that he tore his mother apart with his monstrous body, that even as a babe he thought nothing of kinslaying and murder – and she never gave them any thought; she  _never_  thought about her husband if she could help it. Now, standing at his side, she can see his wrecked face twisted with emotion, true emotion that isn’t hiding behind three layers of sarcasm and wit and self-deprecation. It hurts her, like heat reflecting on an unhealed burn: she can remember struggling against arms holding her back, the sound of the sword slicing through muscles and tendons, the awful guilt gnawing and gnawing.

She remembers that no words could ever turn back time, none could return her father to her. Sansa holds her tongue and places a hand on Tyrion’s shoulder. He starts, turns his head to look at her shrewdly, but then eases. His hand comes up and covers her own; she is surprised at the comfort she feels at the action.

The final time she thaws, it is outside the keep, on the cliffs. There’s still more to find in Casterly Rock – in fact, she doubts she’ll ever know the castle as well as her husband, or even their children – but the humidity inside is oppressive and outside there is a blustering wind that cools her. Sansa is still wary of the ocean but she can see a similarity to the North in its starkness, the uncompromising nature of the waves. On the beach, at a respectable distance from the water, she is charmed by rock pools full of life, thriving pockets of brightly coloured fish and crabs. There are stairs, crude and sharp, cut out of the stone of the cliffs and she climbs them until her thighs burn and she is red faced from exertion.

At the top she stumbles, so shocked to see her husband in this remote place that she loses her balance, but his hand grasps her elbow and steadies her.

‘Surely, you are quite used to my face by now, my lady!’ Tyrion exclaims. ‘If this is your reaction, perhaps you should turn back – the Lion’s Roar is not for the faint.’

Sansa stands up straighter and throws him a defiant look, though she has no idea what the “Lion’s Roar” might be; she is a wolf and no pussycat will call her faint. ‘I was merely surprised to find you here, my lord. I thought you were meeting with House Plumm all afternoon.’

‘Is that a hint of disapproval in your voice, dear wife? Or is it disappointment? Were you hoping I could be otherwise occupied and you could have a tender tryst in this secluded spot?’ He wags his eyebrows and affects a leer.

She laughs. It’s breathless and soft, but it is the first time her husband’s lewd remarks have ever amused her to the point of laughter. His face smooths back into a smile and he takes his hand away from her elbow; she’s surprised at the heat that seems to remain.

‘No trysts,’ she promises. ‘Will you show me this so-called Lion’s Roar?’

‘Gladly.’

Tyrion leads her further up the cliff. It’s steep, but soon levels out as it reaches the edge where there is some sculpted mass. It takes her a moment to understand what she is seeing, but then the strange shapes make sense: some brave soul had carved a lion’s mouth into the rock, a snarling, beastly thing that is more frightening for its abstract nature than for its realism. It looks more like the lion on the Lannister sigil than the animals caged in Casterly Rock.

Sansa turns to say something, but Tyrion gestures for her to wait, to be silent, and she pauses. She can hear the rumbling of the waves below the overhanging rock, smashing against the cliffs, and the mourning cries of the gulls – she is nearly used to the sounds after weeks in the castle. There’s a growling noise from below, different enough to catch her attention, and then it grows into a full-bodied roar as a gust of water and wind rushes out of the yawning lion’s mouth, so loud it blots out all else. The plume is huge, flying perhaps ten feet into the overcast sky, and it lands heavily, raining down salt water on to the hardy grass around them. A light misting covers her, enough to make her dress damp but not ruin the material; it’s refreshing with the breeze against her skin, and her heart is beating fast with excitement.

Tyrion is watching her, his expression boyish and open. She feels  _alive_ , with her flushed cheeks and sore muscles; she feels enormous and nigh invincible standing on a cliff where the wind could knock her into the sea.

Later, after she has bathed and dressed in her bedclothes, and her snoring husband is lying next to her, Sansa thinks about Winterfell and it doesn’t hurt, not in the same way it used to: there are no sharp points, just a dull throb that will fade in time. When she closes her eyes she even thinks that maybe Casterly Rock could be home, one day.


End file.
